The Northern Charter

23/03/2020

Hey!!! We are ‘programming’ this event Dance Dance Party Party in the safety of your home - join us on Zoom at 6pm !

From Dance Dance Party Party

You might know that every week I put on something called Dance Dance Party Party. It's women only, I put on an hour of music and we all dance however we want - there are no instructions except to not hurt yourself or other people. Obviously we can't meet at the moment so I thought I'd do an online one instead. It starts on Monday at 6pm so if you fancy a short virtual dance party please join in. It will be about 35 minutes of dancing and 5 minutes of waving at each other on zoom. Men are also welcome to virtual ddpp. And kids. And dogs. All are welcome x

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23/02/2020

Get your tickets here!
Saturday 28 March 3-5pm We host the fantastic Jayne Dent /// Jayne Dent is an artist, musician and composer based in Newcastle upon Tyne, working primarily with performance, electronic music, sound installation and print. She performs regularly and releases recorded music under the alias ‘Me Lost Me’ and has recently been included on BBC Introducing NE’s Tips list for 2020.
Join us at The Northern Charter for a listening event of Jayne’s new work ‘The waves like braids, unravelling’ composed in response to material found in the Women Artists of the North East Library in 2019.
Through approaching the library collection as a mesh of textures and interweaving stories, Jayne Dent has composed a piece of music that journeys through electric and acoustic spaces, inner and outer worlds, evoking the touch of fabric and water on skin. Samples collide and fade and lay across each other, replicating the tangled nature of the archive and wild water currents.
For this event we will spend time listening together, sharing and discussing ways of responding to text and archival material through music, and compositional methods. There will also be the opportunity to explore some of techniques Jayne has found useful, including word clouds and collaboration with others.
No previous experience of music making necessary, this event is open to all.
The event is free but spaces are limited, advanced booking recommended - Please RSVP via Eventbrite.

02/11/2019

25/10/2019

Next Event: Saturday 2nd November 2019 1-3pm performance starts at 1.30pm
with 'Posset' as narrator and the Shunyata Improvisation Group perform John Cage's 'Lecture on Nothing'. Northern Charter Project Space, 5th Floor, Commercial Union House, 39 Pilgrim Street, Newcastle, NE1 6QE

Donations requested but not required “I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry”
” We need not fear these silences” - John Cage, Lecture on Nothing.

To mark the 60th anniversary of John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing the Shunyata Improvisation Group will improvise a response for two hours with the dictaphone, tape and vocal bending maestro Posset as the improvising narrator. The Lecture on Nothing is an inspirational text for those of us interested in the application of Zen aesthetic principles in art.

Posset. Dictaphone and vocal improviser. All goof, all the time. Skronk etc.
https://posset.bandcamp.com

The Shunyata Improvisation Group explores space and restraint in performance while simultaneously maximising the opportunity for meditative reflection in the audience. Musical improvisation is inspired by the 7 Zen Art principles exploring the balance between the ambient sound of the environment and musical intervention. The group usually play entirely acoustic long durational pieces to encourage an immersive atmosphere. Improvisation is conducted collaboratively, distinctly and quietly.

Recordings of improvisations can be heard here: https://soundcloud.com/trubba-not

The core members of the Shunyata Improvisation Group are:
• Katie Oswell- vocals, Zither, small objects
• Tobias Illingworth- vocals, piano, percussion, stringed instruments, ,everyday objects, room manipulation • NofC – vocals, melodeon and percussion
• trubba not – acoustic guitars
The 7 Zen art principles which serve as a frame for the groups improvisations are:

1. Asymmetry- not adhering to perfection
2. Non-attachment- Open minded and detached, being without any form completes every form
3. Naturalness- Artless in its natural form, without pretence
4. Simplicity- Not complicated or gaudy
5. Silence- Limitless Silence, the inward looking Mind
6. Wizened Austerity- Solitary, dignified

23/07/2019

Coming up / Maggie Nicols workshop / Life drawing with Heather Bonnie Reid - https://mailchi.mp/8087d3172513/gfvazvtio1-1148821

18/07/2019

There are still a couple of spaces left on next week's workshop with singer and a pioneer of free improvisation, Maggie Nicols and artist Bryony Gillard on the morning of Friday 26 July!

Maggie has been facilitating improvisation workshops for over 50 years across the world and this is a very special opportunity to learn from some of the exercises and techniques she uses in her practice.

No previous experience is necessary and the workshop is open to all. Booking is essential --> https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/improvisation-workshop-with-maggie-nicols-tickets-63405635964

Breakfast included 🍊🍊🍊🥖🥖☕

♦️REMINDER this is in partnership with Bryony Gillard and Guest's performance 'Harmonic Anatomies/Wet Mouths' next Thursday Projections @ Tyneside Tix here - https://www.tynesidecinema.co.uk/film-and-events/view/bryony-gillard-and-guests-harmonic-anatomieswet-mouths♦️

Improvisation workshop with Maggie Nicols Maggie has been facilitating improvisation workshops for over 50 years across the world with people from diverse backgrounds. This is a unique opportunity for Maggie to share some of the exercises and techniques she uses in her practice. Drawing on her life....

13/06/2019

ArtHouses submission deadline 21st June ⏱️ Get your applications in! Two of our lovely studio holders Rob Smith and Sophie Buxton are part of the hardworking team making it happen! Fantastic support and £££ available. It's one of the most brilliant summer events in the N.E, we totally recommend. Details on their website http://arthouses.net/

Victoria Avenue is waiting for your applications! 👉21st June midnight deadline for submissions 👈
👀www.arthouses.net

13/06/2019

🌟Studio available in central Newcastle!🌟 We're looking for a new member to join The Northern Charter. We've got cheap studio space, a large project space to test ideas out, opportunities to programme events and really friendly studio holders as neighbours. Come and have a look around, we're really nice, promise! --> https://thenortherncharter.org/?studiosavailable

24/05/2019

28/03/2019

Studioholder Tonight Posted • THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT ⠀
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Holly Argent's 'Interleaving the Archive (Group Action with KK)' is a performative lecture that brings together spoken semi-fictive narrative, photographic transparents and live video-feed projection around the archive of Polish artists duo Przemyslaw Kwiek and Zofia Kulik (KwieKulik or ‘KK’). ⠀
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The event will also include screenings of four films by KwieKulik. ⠀
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28/03/2019

Studio Holders tonight launch this Posted • Join us tonight! to see ISLANDERS at
until 5 May 2019

Reception
Thursday 28 March 6-8pm
Giles Bailey, Jamie Hammill, Nellie Saunby and Sophie Soobramanien are artists based in Newcastle and London who work with performance, writing, sculpture and moving image. Since Summer 2018 they have collaborated to create an expanded project under the title 'Islanders'. This work was initially realised as a live performance, but in this version it is now represented by two synchronised videos.
Since classical times, artists, musicians and writers have created imagined islands as a stage for 'thought experiments'. ‘Islanders’ is a collage of many of these, referencing William Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, Paul Simon's song 'I Am A Rock' (re-recorded by Simon & Garfunkle) and Ubisoft's first-person shooter video game ‘Far Cry 3’. By elaborating or re-staging such representations of islands, the work invites us to consider what states of isolation can achieve or how they might fail. It questions the ways in which political ideals, or even fantasies, occupy our imagination and what the promise of rescue offers us — whether consolation, solace, or a sense of completion.
In devising ‘Islanders’, the artists made use of a collaborative methodology called ‘RSVP Cycles'. This was devised by choreographer and architect Anna and Laurence Halprin in the late 1960s. It is also informed by research into the performance practices of Joan Jonas, Yvonne Rainer and The Wooster Group.

A version of the work will be added to the NGCA's permanent collection in May 2019.
23 February – 5 May 2019
FREE
NGCA Sunderland, Liberty Way SR6 OGL

28/03/2019

Join Heather Bonnie Reid for a performative life-drawing session 2: 6th April 2-5pm! Heather Bonnie Reid is a performance
artist, fiddle player and sculptor. In these experimental sessions she will recite scripts, play music and hold sculptures while modelling.

With the poses she holds Heather hopes there will be more pictures in the world of women’s bodies: exhibiting strength, struggle, of women’s bodies ready to fight, of women’s bodies in the act of creating, reading, holding, dragging.
Paper and pencils will be provided
but feel free to bring any of your own materials.
There will be hot food to share
at the end of sessions.

24/03/2019

Join Heather Bonnie Reid for a performative life-drawing session 1: Tomorrow-
Mon 25th March 5pm-7pm Heather Bonnie Reid is a performance
artist, fiddle player and sculptor. In these experimental sessions she will recite scripts, play music and hold sculptures while modelling.

With the poses she holds Heather hopes there will be more pictures in the world of women’s bodies: exhibiting strength, struggle, of women’s bodies ready to fight, of women’s bodies in the act of creating, reading, holding, dragging.

Paper and pencils will be provided
but feel free to bring any of your own materials.

There will be hot food to share
at the end of sessions.

23/03/2019

Up next Heather Bonnie Reid - Performative Life-Drawing. Monday 25 March 5pm - 7pm. Experimental life drawing and hot food afters. x

21/03/2019

Tonight! Don’t miss Fiona Larkin at 6pm. ‘There is undoubtedly, at first sight, something startling in the notion that it is we, the beholders, who, so to speak, make form exist in ourselves by alteration in our respiratory and equilibratory processes, and by initiated movements of various parts of the body.’

Vernon Lee, ‘Beauty and Ugliness’

20/03/2019

come see Fiona Larkin's lush new work in our event space. tomorrow thursday 21. 6pm - 8pm.

19/03/2019

Posted • North East art BABES! I'm putting on two performative life drawing sessions at the northern charter very soon! The first is next Monday 25th. Sharpen your pencils, shake your ink bottles and stretch out your fingers.
During the sessions I will hold my sculptures, play the fiddle, read from some of my favourite books and recite some performance scripts. I hope the poses I hold help to create pictures in the world of a woman's body showing strength, endurance and happiness.
There will be a big pot of something vegan and tasty to share after drawing too.
Hope to see some familiar faces of you golden art babes there.
Thanks for letting me loose with this